Re: Celtic and Baltic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
<S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "CG" <sonno3@...> wrote:
> > > The Lithuanian word seems to be related to Slavic

*c^IlnU 'boat,

> > canoe',
> > > but not to the Celtic ethnonym *kelto-/*kelta:-, I'm not sure
> what
> > the
> > > latter "means" in the sense that it has no obvious etymology.
> Maybe
> > > Chris Gwinn can help us.
> >
> > On the face of it, Gaulish *Celtos, pl. *Celti/*Celtoi (the

source

> of
> > Greek Keltoi, Latin Celtae) seems to be derived from one of the
> > various PIE *kel- roots (*kel- 1. "to strike, cut", 2. "cover,
> > conceal, save", 3. "to drive, set in swift motion", 4. "to be
> > prominent, hill", 5. "to prick", 6. "to deceive, trick"). Not all
> of
> > these various *kel-'s survive in Irish or Welsh, but that does

not

> > mean that most (if not all) of them couldn't have existed in
> Gaulish -
> > so it's hard to say precisely which one might have been the root
> of
> > the ethnic name. "Prominent One" of "Swift" seem attractive

choices

> > to me.
>
> If so, the connection with Lith. <kéltas> 'ferry(-boat)' offered by
> Egijus still can't be excluded. It's hard to believe the only
> connection between <kéltas> and <kélti> (< PIE *kel(h1)- 'lift; set
> in motion') 'lift, raise, wake up, put up (also figuratively --

'put

> up a fight' etc); take across (by water); carry, transfer, move
> (somewhere else)' is a folk-etymological one. Cf. also <kilnóti> (<
> *klh1-n-) 'carry, transfer, move (somewhere else);take across (by
> water);lift' and <kelnas> 'ferry-boat' (quoted by Vasmer, I must
> admit I've never heard the word); also <ke~lias> 'road, way'. So
> probably *Celtos could mean something 'having crossed a river'

(like

> Hebr. <'ibri:> ?) :).
>

Møller links the root of the 'wheel' IE word to some Arabic
words 'going fast on horseback' my memory has recorded somewhere;
that would mean death(?) to my attempts to find words for "round"
connected with it:

http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/kr.html

Torsten